Yugoslavia

Twice there has been a country called Yugoslavia. Twice in modern times Yugoslavia, a country of c. 22 million (population data from 1985), experimented with a form of unity, the first time from 1918 to the Second World War and the second during the Cold War under communist party rule. The so-called First Yugoslavia was a form of unity underpinned by the United Kingdom and France, which wanted a large country in the underbelly of Germany and Austria in order to contain Germanic influence and possible advances towards the east and into the southern Balkans or eastern Mediterranean. The Second Yugoslavia was the result of Tito’s successful manoeuvring between the two superpowers, the USA and the USSR, in the aftermath of the SecondWorld War. Thus, Tito’s communist and non-aligned Yugoslavia (Tito died in 1980) survived the Cold War through receiving assistance and partial support from both the USSR and the West, but mostly from the West through the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the US Export-Import Bank and from the restoration of trade relations with the West after 1949. In essence, Cold War Yugoslavia had been an important link in NATO’s chain of policies in the eastern Mediterranean, acting as a barrier to the Soviets, who always wanted to gain a toehold in the region and thus reach the Suez Canal. Yugoslavia’s fateful dependency on the West manifested itself most dramatically in the 1970s, when the country borrowed large amounts of money in order to finance domestic growth via exports. However, the Western economies entered a recession (the stagflation of the 1970s) and blocked Yugoslav exports. This exacerbated Yugoslavia’s international debt and forced the IMF to ask the Yugoslav authorities to implement a number of neo-conservative fiscal and institutional reforms in order to regain economic credibility and repay the debt. The required set of reforms included constitutional revision of the 1974 loose federal settlement, which had conceded large powers to Yugoslavia’s five constituent republics (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia-the two Serbian provinces of Kosovo and Metohija and of Vojvodina also enjoyed considerable autonomy). However, the ethnic elites of the constituent republics opposed the neo-conservative reforms, arguing that they would damage their constitutional rights, so forcing the richest of the republics, that is, Croatia and Slovenia, to foot the bill for this neo-conservative/neo-liberal reform

package. Thus, in the event, violence and ethnic conflict in the Yugoslavia of the 1990s could be seen as an unintended consequence of IMF and World Bank interventions, both of which demanded fiscal discipline and a more centralized government, measures that effectively undermined the established autonomy of the republics enshrined in the 1974 Constitution. The conflict first unfolded in Croatia and then in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the latter with the most ethnically diverse population. The USA and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) intervened in 1993-94, following the failure of the European Union (EU) to end the conflict. In 1995 the Dayton Accord was signed between the various parties, notably the USA and President Slobodan Milosˇevic´’s rump of Yugoslavia. Four years later Milosˇevic´ again faced NATO power, this time over Kosovo, as the West accused Serbia/Yugoslavia of pursuing genocidal policies towards the Kosovar Albanians. After 72 days of bombing, and following Russian mediation, Milosˇevic´ ordered his troops to leave Kosovo, only to find himself with a legal battle in The Hague, at an international tribunal, accused of crimes against humanity. He died of a heart attack five years later, but Serbia’s drama continues, as it is the only country in the Balkans still struggling to get some attention from both the EU and the USA.